Longtime members of an El Segundo church are suing their pastor, claiming he revoked memberships and leadership roles of women in order to join a more conservative denomination.

The suit claims the pastor also misused church money, broke the bylaws, lied about being ordained and has abused prescription drugs.

The pastor, the Rev. Roger Kinsey of Pacific Baptist Church on Main Street, denies the allegations, saying in court documents that a small minority of disgruntled members is attempting to take over the church.

Those involved are “mischaracterizing my reputation,” the pastor said in a sworn deposition, calling for a congregational meeting to resolve the issues outside of court. He declined to comment, referring questions to his attorney, Kevin Lewis.

The first hearing on the civil case is scheduled Wednesday in Torrance Superior Court before Judge Deidre Hill.

Lewis said in court documents that the doctrinal issues related to females in leadership – still a controversial subject in some churches – are decided at the discretion of the pastor, because they are not spelled out in the Southern Baptist Convention Confession of Faith.

Kinsey “did seek to appropriately exercise his discretion in his role of the pastor according to the Church Constitution and his understanding of the Bible with regards to women in ministry,” Lewis wrote, citing New Testament verses that prohibit women from having authority over men.

One of the plaintiffs in the case, Bonnie Tsurudome, served as the church treasurer and a trustee, and was music director for more than 30 years before being asked to step down in June, she said. As music director, she supervised a male guitarist.

“I was told that because I was a woman with authority over a man, that God wasn’t blessing this church,” said Tsurudome, a 44-year member of the church. “I walked away from that meeting, just speechless.”

Ted Knapp, a director with the Southern Baptist Convention, said that women are barred only from serving as senior pastors; the notion that women can’t be music directors is “insane.”

“Women have been respected and have served as directors for many years (at Pacific Baptist),” said Knapp, a director at the LAX/Urban Center, which provides teaching and other resources to about 100 Southern Baptist churches in the Los Angeles area.

The women say the doctrinal changes came up only after Kinsey, pastor since 2002, expressed interest in affiliating with the Calvary Chapel denomination. Last spring, he hired a former leader at Calvary Chapel South Bay in Gardena, James Trabilcy – a decision Tsurudome, then a trustee, agreed to on a temporary basis.

In a written statement, officials with the Gardena megachurch denied any involvement with Pacific Baptist.

Lewis did not deny that discussions had taken place about changing denominations, but said in court documents that any such decision would require a membership vote. Affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention is voluntary; the church owns its property outright and controls its own finances, he said.

“As an independent church, (Pacific Baptist) … owns all of its assets, and will continue to do so – even if it decides at some future time to change its affiliation,” Lewis said.

Knapp agreed that a church can leave at any time if members vote to do so, but this is the first time he’s aware that a church would leave for another denomination.

When he heard of these plans last spring, along with other “integrity issues” that had been raised about the pastor, he began to investigate and couldn’t confirm Kinsey’s claim to have been ordained in the late 1980s. A second ordination obtained by Kinsey from the Inner City Christian Center, a Rancho Cucamonga organization that issues such certifications, was revoked in July.

William Martin, director of the center, wrote that “after prayerful contemplation” over the matter, he would rescind the ordination due to Kinsey’s “misuse of pastoral authority.”

Martin could not be reached for comment. Knapp, however, said he was made aware of the dispute over female leaders, along with the prescription drug use.

In their suit, members claim the pastor had asked them for leftover supplies of Vicodin and Ambien. The pastor denied this and provided a note from his doctor attesting to his need for the medication.

In his deposition, Kinsey said he was ordained sometime between 1985 and 1989 with a church that has since dissolved. He said he was unaware of Martin’s recent decision to revoke his ordination.

He also denied dissolving any church memberships, saying those who left did so voluntarily.

After an uncomfortable encounter with Trabilcy at the church, former member Vickie Caton said she and her husband were summoned to the pastor’s office.

“(Kinsey) told us that since we didn’t agree with his teaching, he needed us to step down,” she said. “My husband was absolutely devastated. He was a new Christian at the time, and this was the first church he ever belonged to.”

Caton, Tsurudome, and a third plaintiff, Robin Thompson, want the courts to immediately prevent Kinsey from making any decisions, and to order church leaders to follow the bylaws, among other remedies.

The women continue to attend weekly services at the congregation, which all agree has seen membership dwindle to a few dozen people.

Though uncomfortable, they say they want to prevent Kinsey from making any decisions that could harm the future of the church, one of the first to be established in the Southern Baptist Convention’s L.A. region.

“I’m not a confrontational person,” Tsurudome said. “It’s not my style. But this has broken my spirit.”

Melissa Evans is the city editor of the Long Beach Press-Telegram. Prior to joining the Long Beach paper in 2011, she was a reporter covering health care, religion, city government and social issues for newspapers in the Los Angeles area, the Bay Area and the East Coast. She has a master's degree in theology from Loyola Marymount University, a bachelor's degree in journalism from San Diego State, and has completed several fellowships in journalism. She has lived in the Long Beach area since 2007.

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